As a longtime comic book hound, I’ve had my in-and-out dalliances with Superman. One of the all-time greats of the genre. At one point, the indisputable king of superheroes. Love him or hate him as a comics fan or you just enjoyed watching George Reeves in the 1950s play the Man of Steel on the tube or the immortal Christopher Reeve (THE Superman, for my tastes) in his four movies. You can’t erase the fact Kal-El and his symbolic “S” totem has united an entire world for 85 years now.

85. Let that number soak in a bit. Nearly nine decades since Action Comics # 1 changed pop culture and turned kids and grownups alike into closet heroes tying bedsheets around their necks in pretend of crime-busting glory. More refined and with higher fashion stakes, they call it cosplay these days.

I love Superman and always will, but DC Comics hasn’t maintained my interest in the character since their New 52 and Rebirth initiatives. For those not initiated or all that deep into comics, I’m talking about relaunches and rebrands of the house books with brand new # 1 issue resets designed to garnish hype and interest for new generations coming to comics. DC and Marvel Comics are both guilty as sin, however, of taking it one step further, halting ongoing series under a set creative writing and art team to begin all over again with a new team in place. It’s getting tiresome and difficult to maintain brand loyalty, especially with recent cover price hikes.

You can beat yourself senseless trying to make sense of this off-kilter numerical continuity once you look at a tiny imprint “legacy” issue number like Marvel does, keeping a faint count of the actual number of issues a title has run of its full course. All in design of smoke screening hooked readers toward oversized, price-spiked “anniversary” gala issues of the title’s real-time sequencing. I’ll pause for you to hit the ibuprofen.

Thus, this week’s Superman # 7 from DC is actually issue number 850 had the publisher stuck to an actual count of releasing without all of the back-to-one chronological reordering. Need I further stymie the situation by mentioning DC reloaded the Superman title back to # 1 in the 1980’s?

Getting to the point of my rant-in-disguise-of-celebration, I won’t lie that Superman # 7 (circa 2023 and the new label initiative “Dawn of DC”) really didn’t cut it for me. Not even Daily Planet editor Perry White opening the issue with some tender introspection before announcing his running for mayor of Metropolis. Not even with Lex Luthor’s seeming rehabilitation and enlightenment in retrospection of his time being thwarted by Clark Kent and Superman, all these designed to hoist the “anniversary” flag of the comic as happens in every 50 or 100 issue storylines. Hell, this trope of Lex turning good has happened before and conveniently played the same time Norman Osborn has been absolved of his Green Goblin sins over in the competitor’s Amazing Spider-Man.

I didn’t even care about the scraggly, chained bad guy, Sammy Stryker, carrying a vendetta against Lex Luthor and, of course, Metropolis itself. Nor the Dr. Frankenfurter in a wheelchair and his mop-headed, trench-wearing cohort, Dr. Pharm and Mr. Graft. I’m not trying to be a dick, because I love comics with all my heart and I’m a writer too, but even with an entire team of “Supers” joining Kal-El’s endless crusade for justice, it’s all just whatever.

With the bold exception of Lee Bermejo’s poignant and beautiful variant cover, the real reason I allowed myself to be suckered into buying this issue. This, my friends, boiling down to a kid pantomiming Superman in his bedroom while the real Super McCoy swoops by… This is why Superman still matters.

–Ray Van Horn, Jr.